I'm not convinced
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: Because of a small encounter, Hatori questions his thoughts for Kana versus how he really reacts.


Disclaimer: Fruit Baskets isn't Yui's.  
  
"I'm not convinced."  
  
By miyamoto yui  
  
"I'm not convinced," Aya had told me as the wind blew while we were sitting around the table overlooking that lake deep in the mountains.  
  
His words continued to repeat inside of my head more like an unwanted tune on the radio rather than advice that I wanted to hear. They sliced me into small, indistinguishable pieces every time I thought about them.  
  
Today, he blinked at me and sipped his tea next to me with a straight face. He smiled at me as my heart began to feel like it had been squeezed slowly, but painfully by tweezers.   
  
"You're too kind," he told me while raising his cup in the air as if he were declaring this fact to a whole congregation. It was all met with silence as I looked at him with my closed eye while reaching for my cup of coffee to sip it without this nonsense going through his head.   
  
He didn't say anything until I had had my fill of my cup of coffee. Putting his hand on my shoulder, his concerned eyes looked transparently at me. "You're afraid. Stop making yourself unhappy."  
  
As Aya got up, his robe elegantly swept against the ground while I looked up at him with nothing to say. I couldn't say anything.  
  
Doing so would betray the little calm and composed self that I had kept as my façade to the world around me.  
  
Without anything else to say, Aya had left me with nothing, but a sigh and a "Come visit me next time."  
  
His eyes wouldn't even look at me at that time. I knew he was hurt because he wanted to comfort me.  
  
To save me as I had always done for him.  
  
But I wouldn't allow him to.  
  
He knew I hated it when people made a fuss over me, as humbled as I were by those few who thought of me so much as to do that.  
  
I then got up and attended to the rest of the family and lastly got to Akito's room. It was only lit by a candle, so when I went in, it flickered next to him. While he looked up to see me, he laid in his futon.  
  
He then got up as I checked him, but as he was pulling on his kimono, he grabbed onto my jacket and gave me a look that he wouldn't even admit to having. The anxiety of that look was more than fear as he began to shake.  
  
"Hatori…" he whispered into my ear as he wrapped his arms around my shoulders. "Stay here with me."  
  
His grip on my jacket was even firmer than all the previous times he had done this.  
  
"You're just going through an anxiety attack," I calmly told him as I tried to push him onto the futon.  
  
Akito blinked at me like an innocent teenager that had been drinking for the first time. His glassy eyes were wide as they studied my expression over him.  
  
He wanted someone there.  
  
He wanted me there to comfort him, but what could I do?  
  
At that moment, I sighed as I took him carefully into my arms like a child. I patted his back as he closed his eyes while holding onto me.   
  
But was this enough? I couldn't understand him and nor could he understand why this warm action made him almost too vulnerable to anything to do with me.  
  
I placed him back on his futon as he fell asleep and left him with the sliding screen quietly closing behind me. In my own room, however, I couldn't go to sleep.  
  
I changed and brushed my teeth, but I was staring up at the darkness before me. I always had a hard time going to sleep, except today would be exceptionally hard.  
  
I could feel myself bleed without any chance of stopping as my eyes refused to close. For if I did so, I would see the scene all over my head.  
  
It would be so much more painful to replay it again in my head.  
  
As much as I resolved the whole situation in my head for quite some time, I guess people don't realize the impact until all their senses feel everything from every point of view and angle there could possibly be. It's different thinking one thing and seeing the actual thing in real life.  
  
Aya was right. I was afraid.  
  
I was afraid of falling for someone again. I was afraid of hurting that person as well as them hurting me. I was afraid of others in our family experiencing what I had gone through.  
  
But there was something more than that.  
  
I was a coward in a sense. I told Aya I could live alone with the memories of Kana that were locked deep inside of me even if she couldn't recall anything of our past. Even if she didn't carry the burden I was holding for both of us, it was all right with me.  
  
I had known the warmth and cold breath of love, even with no one to share it with anymore.  
  
I had told myself it was enough. That wherever she went, whomever she was with, I would wish her happiness because she had shown me an inkling of something many people would never experience no matter how hard they tried in this lifetime, especially under this household.  
  
Was it truly enough? I wonder.  
  
I truly wonder now if I had thought the correct thing or if I had been trying to convince myself of this all these years.  
  
Today, I don't know.  
  
Today, my idealistic way and my selfless love totally shattered me deep inside.  
  
I saw her.  
  
I passed by Kana today.  
  
I was trying to buy new books to read from the bookstore. When I was walking to the books about medicines, I did a double-take.  
  
There she was in front of me only twenty feet away with a smile on her face…  
  
…facing her husband next to her.   
  
Giving that smile to someone else.  
  
That smile that used to be only for me.  
  
My feet wouldn't move from their place and yet I found myself staring for a few more seconds as it hit me that maybe I wasn't as ready for this as I had thought. My thoughts and the execution of them were on totally different planes right now.  
  
The numbed part of my heart told me, "It's totally over. Face it."  
  
The hopeful part said, "Go…go now, Hatori before you break your heart again."  
  
As I was about to turn around before she noticed me, it was too late.   
  
"Hello!" I heard as I was about avert my body away from them.  
  
No! I don't want to see this!  
  
Kana smiled and bowed before me while her companion stood behind her not making a sound. She, whether consciously or not, totally blocked my view of her husband.  
  
Weirdly, she asked me without introducing her husband, "How are you?"  
  
I answered, "I'm doing fine."  
  
I knew the irreversible process wouldn't and shouldn't have given me hope, but I looked at her eyes to see if I was still there, even unconsciously. Selfish as it may have been, I wanted her to know how much I had been suffering without her.  
  
For a moment, I was ashamed at the 'kindness' that Aya said I had.  
  
With that, I left her with a goodbye and an excuse about having to rush back to the main house. As I left with the few books I had bought, I drove home in a daze and a burdened heart.  
  
So now, I couldn't breathe as calmly as I should have.  
  
If I thought that before I knew what it meant to have your heart broken, I really didn't until today. Until I truly looked into her eyes and realized how much I couldn't protect what I should have from the beginning and how I let it slip away so easily from me.  
  
I loved-  
  
No, I love her so much.  
  
Until now, despite everything, even if she'll never look at me and say, "I'm glad I fell in love with you," I will still remember.   
  
I'm fighting to keep these memories of her no matter how much they've hurt me deeply inside.  
  
I don't know what to do about them or how to even express how I feel to anyone around me, but I know I can't do anything at all about these feelings. They're helpless and desparate, but I can't do anything.  
  
Nothing at all.  
  
All this time, I thought I had accepted this fact of never having her again or loving someone as deeply as that, but now I truly understand Aya when he said, "I'm not convinced."  
  
I just couldn't tell him.  
  
I couldn't tell him, "There was still that hope inside of me. One day, she will remember, even for a second, about me."  
  
That was the hope I lived on for sometime now.  
  
Now, with seeing her giving that smile to someone else, a book has truly closed in front of me, raping me of that chance. My hope has been false all along and it is now forever gone.  
  
But still, I truly love this woman more than anyone or anything else in the world.  
  
I turned to one side and tried to close my eyes while whispering to myself, "I hope you'll be happy with him and that he'll love you even more than I do."  
  
Sighing, I pictured her beautiful smile imprinted inside of my head.  
  
Yes, no matter how much it hurts, I would do it all over again.  
  
Just for that moment when she had told me, "I'm glad I fell in love with you."  
  
A tear fell from my eyes, but I didn't wipe it away.   
  
I let it stain my pillow.  
  
But it was just one tear, though.  
  
All the tears I had held inside of me wouldn't come out at all. I couldn't cry anymore.  
  
It wasn't because I had come stronger, but because they had been fossilized. They would always remain there.   
  
Somewhere in my heart.   
  
Unable to breathe or let go.  
  
All the while, the silence of the room drove me crazy. Then, I opened my mouth and whispered while trying to convince and comfort myself,  
  
"Someday, you'll remember me."  
  
Owari.  
  
--  
  
Author's note: Maybe I'll always be drawn to characters that are quiet, yet sincerely kind. I didn't know Hatori's personality a year earlier, but from the first time I saw him, I liked him. I liked him a lot. ^_^  
  
I thought of doing this fic because I know that I had recent issues about this particular subject: This bittersweet thing we call 'love'. I think in this situation, Hatori's story would work best, so I used him in this fanfic instead of Subaru/Seishirou or Hiro/Shuichi. This time, I wanted to try something different.  
  
It makes me think of one reader who had e-mailed me at about 3:30 am in the morning to tell me she had been crying, but after some time of being an insomniac, she was able to go to sleep because of a fic I had made exactly a year ago. And I realize that that fic and this one today are made for the same reason: to let out those feelings I know I could express to no one around me for they wouldn't understand the whole purity of the situation before me. So, I presented this fic to you and I was comforted to know that last year, there was someone who was touched by the fic.   
  
As for me, throughout this fic, I felt a heavy, oppressing feeling over my heart. It is cold and I am afraid it will stay there for such a long time… 


End file.
